Holidays and new routes boosted Ahmedabad's domestic air traffic

Introduction of new routes, festive season and New Year rush pushed domestic traffic at city's Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in December last year.

| TNN | Mar 10, 2014, 04:05 IST

AHMEDABAD: Introduction of new routes, festive season and New Year rush pushed domestic traffic at city's Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in December last year. However, constant growth on international routes till November 2013 declined by 14.2% in year-end, following non-availability of flights to holiday destinations like Malaysia and Thailand and few flyers to places like Dubai and the US.
Domestic traffic witnessed a rise of 16.7% in 2013 after a 19.4% drop in December 2012. Though the number of flyers increased in December 2013, it still fell 22,000 short of the passenger movement in December 2011.

Despite a downfall of 14.2%, the number of international flyers in December 2013 was better than December 2011, which had registered the biggest drop of 24.4% in the last four years.

"There were no direct flights to favoured holiday destinations like Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and other beach hotspots. Also, with the slowdown throughout the year, people preferred to travel inside the country, resulting in record growth in domestic movement," said an Airports Authority of India (AAI) official.

According to AAI officials, international flyers coming to Ahmedabad were far higher than those flying out. "New Year is the only time when NRIs come to India on long holidays. But with constrained purses, people chose to fly to places like Goa on New Year," added an AAI official. The reason for decline in international movement is also due to the closure of direct flights to Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok."

"The bookings in December 2013 were better than those of 2012, but were mostly for destinations in India. Those wanting to go to foreign, chose to go via Mumbai and Chennai," said a travel agent.

Officials believe that the drop in international traffic one-off and will get better in 2014. "International traffic at Ahmedabad airport recorded a growth of 9% last year and is expected to grow by 12% in the current year," said R K Singh, airport director.

Like September, October and November, the month of December, too, witnessed a unique behaviour of domestic passenger movement in the last four years. In December 2011, more than 3.75 lakh passengers flew in or landed at the city airport, whereas in 2013, it was just more than 3.5 lakh, a growth of 16.7% from 2012.

Including both international and domestic traffic, the city airport overall recorded a growth of 10% in December last year.

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